CFA CFA Level 1 3 weeks of until exam day… HERE WE GO!

3 weeks of until exam day… HERE WE GO!

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    • Avatar of blitzspadesblitzspades
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        Review period is finally here. Ideally I wanted to start it a week earlier but here we are…

        I’m off for the next 3 weeks for the exam. I can spend 9-11 hours a day on studying. For the majority of my study process I have completed all of the material (read Wiley/Elan guide, listened to Elan/Wiley lecture video, read through CFAI blue box and completed Elan/Wiley EOC and CFAI EOCs). The only exception to the above was I did not do the CFAI blue box examples for ECON nor Quant, only read through Wiley/Elan EOCs for ECON and did not attempt Quant CFAI EOCs.

        My plan in the next 3 weeks is dedicated for review and mock exams. I was skimming the Wiley/Elan 11th hour guide this weekennd and to say I was not overwhelmed is an understatement.

        I am looking for guidance in regards to strategies for the next 3 weeks. Here is the big picture plan:

        • complete 5 to 7 mock exams (of which one is the CFAI mock, one is a live mock and the others will likely be from scheswer)
        • in-depth review of big topic areas such as re-reading the Elan/Wiley guides and re-doing a part of the Elan/Wiley EOCs and CFAI EOCs for Ethics, FRA, Equity, CF, PM and FI 
        • Re-read Ethics two more times (I have already read Ethics 3x)
        • Reading Wiley’s 11th hour guide
        • Attempt topic based questions on CFAI website (candidate ressources)
        • Spend less time on ECON review. ECON plan is to rely mainly on mocks for review

        Issues with prep to date

        I have struggled with QUANT (statistics portion), ECON, Derivatives and Fixed Income Valuation techniques. As stated above, for ECON I will rely mainly on mock exams for review. For Fixed Income, I will go through the difficult readings again along with EOCs (Elan/WIley and CFAI). I feel that I’m not too sure what more to do with QUANT (stats) and Derivatives. What is especially worrying is for the QUANT stats portion I did not get an overall good handle on this section.

         

      • Avatar of PaulAdaptPrepPaulAdaptPrep
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          @blitzspades 

          Sounds like you have a good plan and I highly doubt you’ll have much trouble! You’ll get into a great rhythm with that level of focus over the next three weeks.

          Its good to lead with lots of practice. Its easy to get lost in reading and more reading without challenging yourself to apply it by answering questions. Hit all those EOC questions. A lot of users like our Adapt question bank b/c they can generate short quizzes for specific readings. The exam tests what you can take out of your brain, not just what you can put in, so I really cannot stress practice enough.

          Be sure not to over-stress your weak spots. Quant stats may only end up being a few questions. Doing practice questions is good for that. Focusing on the actual Econ questions in mocks is a good plan, as there is a lot of econ material that is unlikely to be test. For Fixed Income, we have free video lessons on Youtube taught by Mike Carmody, who is particularly good at teaching the more quantitative and financial calculation topics. 

          If you’re struggling with calculations, be sure you’re very comfortable with your calculator. There’s nothing like having a brain freeze on what to do with your calculator! We have a short 15 min calculator guide and there are lots of other free resources available.

          Note that from our team’s experience, Schweser mocks are a bit easier than the actual exam and particularly the quantitative questions are not as difficult. Our free mock exam is also easier than exam level (~4 difficulty on our scale) but our full mocks are exam level. 

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